


Intoxicated (with Love)

by sarkywoman



Category: Andromeda (TV)
Genre: Drug Use, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 03:30:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14741214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarkywoman/pseuds/sarkywoman
Summary: Birthday present fic. Tyr has to find Harper when he's lost in a party on Eloi Drift. Mostly unashamed fluff and intoxication nonsense.





	Intoxicated (with Love)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gratednutmeg](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gratednutmeg/gifts).



The music is intolerable. Tyr fights the urge to clamp his hands over his ears as he moves through the irritating party on Eloi Drift. Neon shines into his eyes from the dancing fools lost to their hedonism and the coloured beams from the ceiling blind him whenever the lamps shift to a certain angle. He pushes people aside without tenderness as their sweat-soaked bodies flail to the sound. It is noise, pure crashing noise without harmony or pattern. And he hates it unreservedly. 

Eventually he reaches the far corner of the repurposed compound, where the doors lead to fire exits and storerooms. And it is down here, by the back of the 'musician's' stage, that Tyr finds Harper's equipment. A flexi, a nanowelder, a connector for his dataport and a few stray wires. Tyr picks them up and slides them into the deep inner pocket of his leather vest. 

He taps his comm to call the _Andromeda_ , covering his other ear so that he can hear Acting Captain Valentine. “I have found the little professor's gadgets, but not him.”

“God damn it,” Beka grumbles. “I told you that you had to stick to him like glue!”

“And he told me that he would be well enough while I sought out Dylan.”

“Right. And now we don't have Dylan or Harper.”

Tyr sighs. As missions go, this one is proving more annoying than usual. Losing their esteemed Captain Dylan Hunt is part and parcel of such outings. The only person as liable as him to be involved in mayhem is their engineer. Bringing them both to Eloi Drift was a mistake. 

“The purple one is adamant she will find Dylan and I will find Harper.”

Beka scoffs. “Since when do you put stock in what Trance says?”

“I don't. But you do. Surely her insistence reassures you.”

“Stop talking to me. Find. Harper. Last time I lost him in a rave he ended up with a public lewdness charge and we haven't got the money for bail.”

The faint background noise of the comm goes away to indicate he is no longer broadcasting and Tyr folds his arms. Turns back to look out of the sea of bumbling bodies. Why Dylan thinks they deserve rescue is beyond him. Mindless, pointless, hedonistic wastes of breath. Whatever they had been to the Commonwealth, they were that no longer. Their people had once, according to the Andromeda, been technological savants and strategists and philosophers. All Tyr sees are chemical-addled pleasure-seekers who have chased their own vanity for so long that their physical bodies are degrading under the weight of lazy modification.

Somewhere out there, they have Harper. They don't seem the sort to kidnap. Tyr is honestly surprised that some of them can manage the fastenings of their own clothes.

Still, the boy's disappearance is suspect, coming as it did on the tail end of his exclaiming, “Oh! It all makes sense now,” over the comm before it went silent. But there are no clues by his equipment. No obvious signs of struggle, but Harper in his physical weakness did not always leave such traces even when he fought. 

In the midst of the colours and the flailing limbs Tyr's gaze catches on something. The flash of recognition was too quick for him to register what he has seen, only that something there deserves his attention. He soon sees it again – the gaudy pixel pattern of Harper's shirt. 

Tyr forces his way through the crowd like a man wading through shallow water, eyes fixed on the colourful fabric his strange little human likes to adorn himself with. After a moment Harper backs fully into view, seemingly unharmed. When he turns, limbs dancing with poor coordination, Tyr sees he actually looks happy. 

It is only a couple of moments more before Tyr can reach the ugly shirt, yanking the boy back towards him. Harper is no longer wearing his white vest underneath, he sees. 

“Harper.” He raises his voice to be heard over the din.

The man lights up upon seeing him. “TYR!” He throws his arms around Tyr's waist and his face nuzzles slightly at Tyr's chest.

Such embraces are always bewildering. Tyr remains still a moment, apart from loosening his grip on Harper's shirt and letting his palm rest against the little professor's back instead. Once he is sure Harper has no intention of moving of his own volition, he brings his hand back up and clamps it down over the boy's skull, tilting Harper's head back to look down into his blue eyes.

His very _dilated_ blue eyes. “What have you taken?”

“Taken? Nah, I haven't taken a _n_ ything,” Harper replies, his tongue sticking on the _n_ , stressing it unusually. He sways to the music, even with Tyr's hand holding his head in place.

“You cannot lie to me, boy. I'm a Nietzchean. I know an intoxicated human when I see one.”

With a giggle, Harper waves an arm out in a gesture encompassing the whole room of dancers. “And there are so many to see!”

“Beka warned me you would get into trouble when left to your own devices. I'm disappointed.”

“Hey, I didn't get myself into trouble, they did.”

“These... Eloi?” The word spills out with disdain, unintentionally.

“No, not--” Harper stops, eyes wide as the music changes in pace. “Tyr! This is an Earth song!” He twists away from the grip on his head and Tyr misses when he grabs for the wily little man. 

“Get back here!”

Harper waves his arms over his head and begins to sing. Another dancer gets up close to him, smooths their hands down his body greedily. 

Tyr is perhaps a little firm in pushing her away, given she falls sprawling, taking other dancers down with her. “We need to leave until you have sobered. Where is your other shirt?”

“That is an _excellent_ question.” Harper ponders, still bouncing on the spot to the beat as he stares into the distance. “Oh! Will.”

“Will?”

“Gave it to Will.” Harper points across the room where a lean Eloi wears his white vest. The Eloi's compact muscles were undoubtedly not earned through hard work. None of these creatures knew the meaning of it. “Well I didn't _give_ it, I was hot so he took it.” Harper giggles again. “Course he's pretty hot too.”

Mr Will sees them from where he stands on the steps by the vents. He winks. Harper takes a step in that direction and Tyr grabs his shoulder. 

“You will get another shirt. Another time.” Of course the boy would be excitable on a Drift of people who actually wish to bed him. Harper's unmodified body is undoubtedly a source of fascination for the beings who had 'transcended' their physical limitations centuries ago. To think, when Dylan had spoken about them Tyr had actually been intrigued by their philosophies. What a waste.

“Nuh-uh, I want to dance, Tyr.” Harper grabs his arm with both hands. “Will you dance with me?”

“No.”

“Aww, come on. I know you want to.”

“It is not true, so you do not know it.”

Harper pouts, swinging Tyr's arm listlessly. Clearly whatever he has taken – been given, perhaps? - has dulled his self-preservation instincts. “But you check me out all the time.”

“I do no such thing.”

“Do too. When I'm bent over my work. There are cameras on the Andromeda, you know. When Beka told me I started looking out for it.”

“Beka...told you.”

“Yup. She thinks you need to get laid and I totally concur. I volunteer.”

Tyr blinks. This time not due to the strobe lighting. “You...” He shakes his head. He will not even repeat the sentiment. “You are intoxicated.”

“I'm enlightened,” Harper argues.

“Move. Now.” He starts to drag Harper along but the boy is uncoordinated and stumbling behind him to try and keep up. Eventually it is simply easier to duck down and heft the smaller man over his shoulder. He feels Harper's yelp against his lower back but keeps walking. Many of the Eloi watch with idle curiosity, but nobody moves to intervene until they reach the door. 

As Tyr steps out into the elaborate glass and marble walkway, a shadow flickers in the corner of his eye. Being Nietzchean, he has his gun in his left hand and a blast in their attacker's chest before they reach him. All without dropping Harper, who mumbles, “wha' just happened?”

Nudging the corpse with his foot garners little more information. The thing is pale and humanoid with twisted limbs and abnormally long fingers. One of its eyes is bloodshot red to the point that barely any white remains. The other is milky with a blue iris. It has fangs bared in a snarl cut short by Tyr's blaster. For some reason the mouth muscles have not relaxed in death. It takes a moment for Tyr to realise its lips are pulled taut. Likely it could not have fully closed its mouth in life. Surgical modification, perhaps? It would not be that far from the norm on this strange little place.

“We were attacked. Ineffectually.”

He feels Harper move a little against his back, a hand on Tyr's posterior to steady himself. “Oh. One of those.”

“You have seen something like this before?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“When?”

“I dunno. Before. Are we home yet?”

Tyr growls. “You are even more irritating on substances than you are when sober.”

“Aww Tyr, you don't mean that. I'm _so_ irritating when sober.”

He continues his stride to the Eureka Maru, thankfully not parked far from the converted compound where they had attempted to retrieve ancient Commonwealth information from the disused computer systems.

“Remove your hand from my rear.”

Harper squeezes him. “But you have a lovely rear.”

“And tomorrow you will be hiding in Engineering in fear of me if I allow you to persist.”

A quiet laugh from his back. “I'm not scared of you?”

“No?”

He ascends the steps of the ship with his precious burden and goes straight to Beka's sleeping area, where he drops Harper onto her bed. She may complain later if she learns of its use, but Tyr prefers it to the tiny bunks in the crew quarters.

The little engineer beams up at him from his prone position. “Nope. Not scared anymore. You're too nice to me. You saved my life. And... y'know.”

Neither of them have spoken of the chaste, barely-there kiss that Tyr had pressed to the boy's head when he had been recovering on med-deck. They don't speak of Tyr's past and how he had confided it in Harper when no others in his life had been told. They do not speak of the last time Harper was injured and he had clung to Tyr's hand like a lifeline. They do not speak of their increased tendency to seek one another out for simple company. His presence in the room to put Harper's anxieties at ease while he works. Harper cheering him through his otherwise-tedious shifts on Andromeda security. 

There seems to be more and more that they do not speak of.

“I do know.”

Harper pushes himself upright clumsily into a sitting position and starts to try and push off one of his ratty boots with the other. While they are still laced. Tyr sighs and crouches down, unlaces the boy's boots then tugs them off of his feet. Harper wiggles his toes in his socks.

“See, you even take my boots off. Never seen an Uber who--”

“What have I told you about calling me that?” Tyr asks, standing.

“Sor _ry_...” Harper then begins to shuffle his pants down. Baggy cargo trousers _and_ underwear.

“What are you doing?” Tyr asks, managing to remain exceptionally calm.

“Told you, I volunteer. I will be the sexy sacrifice on your altar, oh tall and handsome one.”

Harper's pants are kicked across the room and Tyr averts his eyes. A little late. He has seen all he needs to see. Except of course, Harper's face in pleasure or his body in a state of release. 

“You are intoxicated.”

“With love.”

Tyr rolls his eyes. “Neither of us are capable of the sentiment. The dark night deadened such emotions a long time ago.”

“You're not really great at building the mood, anyone tell you that? Or were they intimidated by your pecs?”

“My lovers have always been satisfied,” Tyr says, a little defensively. Such a thing is a point of honour for Nietzcheans. Sex for reproduction is so elevated that its importance extends to how well it is performed.

“Beka said you don't fuck non-Nietzcheans.”

“Did she now?”

“She also said you were just saying it to let her down gently because you wanted my cute ass. If I'm being honest, Tyr, you have terrible taste. But it suits me just fine.” Harper throws himself back onto his back. “Get down here and do me.”

“And you say _I_ am not great at building a mood?”

Harper huffs dramatically and clambers off of the bed, lowering himself to his knees. “Oh, I can build a mood.” He reaches for the fastenings on Tyr's leather pants. 

Tyr grabs his wrists. “I think not. Go to sleep. Sober up.”

“But...”

“No whining.”

He leans down and grabs Harper under the shoulders, lifts him to his feet and nudges him back onto the bed. He then wrestles with the blanket to pull it from under the boy's uncooperative body and lays it over him. 

“This is Beka's bed,” Harper grumbles, already sounding groggy.

“It is.”

“S'big enough for two.”

“I'm sure it is. Sleep.”

Tyr leaves him there and progresses to the cockpit, where he contacts Beka to let her know he found Harper inebriated but seemingly unharmed. He then tries to examine the boy's flexi to see what information he had managed to retrieve before his distraction. Unfortunately, Harper has locked it down to prevent any access other than his own. An unnecessary measure. Tyr will need to have words with him.

About a lot of things. 

Dylan and Trance return just as Tyr is wondering whether he can risk leaving Harper alone to find them. They dart in and close the door as if fleeing pursuit. Gunfire hits the ship, but not enough to make a dent. Handheld blasters, no doubt.

“Turn the defence system on them,” Dylan says urgently. 

As if their guns will penetrate the Maru doors. Tyr nods and does as he's instructed anyway, unleashing one of the turrets on the unprepared attackers. They look similar in some ways to the creature that attacked him and Harper earlier. They cannot withstand the Maru's weapons, that is for sure.

“I assume your visit to the leading dignitaries did not go as well as you had hoped?” Tyr asks innocently.

The Captain glares at him. “Very funny. No, the descendants of the great Eloi would embarrass their ancestors.”

“That's just how it goes sometimes with kids,” Trance says with a cheerful little shrug. She quickly deflates at Dylan's expression.

“So they pit these creatures against you?”

“No, they came out from conduits and floor grates on my way back. I've no idea what they are and I don't care to investigate further here. We're not the ideal strike team.”

Trance raises her eyebrows. “I'm sure we're not, but trust me when I say we were the best formation for the mission.”

For a moment Dylan looks at her as if he might ask for more detail, but he clearly thinks it not worth the effort. “What about plan b? Did Harper find what we need?”

“I'm not certain. He has locked this flexi with his own codes and he was... unfit for explanations when I found him.”

“How so?”

“Sending him into a hedonistic gathering of exotic people who found him curious was perhaps not the best use of the little man.”

“Are you telling me he... shirked his duty to party with the Eloi?”

“Or was compelled to do so. The circumstances seemed odd but he was in no position to explain, as I said. I have left him sleeping in the back.”

Dylan runs a hand back through his hair. “Great. That's just... great. Trance? Is this really the best way this could go?”

She smiles impishly. “Depends on your point of view.”

“A straight answer would be fantastic,” Dylan snaps, his temper clearly frayed by the day they have had. He strides past her and Tyr, down to the pilot's seat. “We'll just have to hope Harper found something useful. We're leaving.” The Maru begins its usual assortment of groans and judders as Dylan prepares for take-off. They lift slightly from the ground before landing with a jolt. “Damn.”

Trance checks the sensors. “It's like our power just... _went_.”

“Nah, not... that's not a thing,” Harper mumbles from the door. Trance and Dylan both raise their eyebrows at him staggering through with a blanket wrapped around his waist but Tyr just hands him the flexi he gestures for. Shooting begins outside again. “There's your problem,” Harper says. “Morlocks.”

“Morlocks,” Tyr echoes.

“As in... 'The Time Machine'?” Dylan asks, referencing the ancient Earth literature.

Harper frowns. “No time travel, just... that's what they call 'em. Look.” He accesses the information on the flexi. When he speaks it is not with his usual speed and not without slurring. “The Eloi got real weird real fast and it wasn't without casualties. The modification nanobots they use didn't work out for everyone. And it was mostly the...” Harper pauses, licks his lips and shakes his head as if trying to fight off slumber. “The clever, experimental ones who went weirdest quickest. When shit happened they'd quarantine the underground labs and the hospitals. Nowadays the Morlocks quarantine themselves. They think _they're_ the better ones. 'Cause they're smarter.”

“So why do they want to hurt us?” Trance asks as the gunfire grows louder. “And how did they stop the ship?”

“They stopped the ship with some simple but _inspired_ jamming tech that I'm gonna work on when we get home. They wanna hurt us because I got that info Dylan was after then wiped half their systems clean. Think they'd hoped I'd just chill with the other stoner Eloi once they'd drugged me.” He chuckles, still tapping at the flexi. “And I got some other useful stuff. Like...” He leans past Tyr, who has to pull the boy's blanket a little higher for modesty. Harper presses a few keys on the console between Tyr and Trance.

There are some screams outside that soon fade.

Dylan clears his throat. “Do we want to know?”

“Nanotech. These guys are one trick ponies. Makes 'em vulnerable. And hopefully that means they've stopped jammin' us.” He waves a hand at Dylan. “Make the flying happen.”

Their Captain seems a little startled at being given orders, but follows them nonetheless. This time the Maru continues its ascent without obstacle. Tyr is focusing his attention on potential threats as they exit Eloi space, tapping at the monitor with one hand. His other arm is practically around Harper from when he had helped to hold up the boy's blanket. He doesn't notice the increased weight until Trance makes a nauseatingly soft sound. 

“Awww, he looks so safe.”

Harper has fallen asleep standing against him. Tyr sighs and lifts the boy into his arms again and carries him through to the bed as before. As he turns to leave, Harper calls him, eyes barely open.

“Tyr? S'it fixed?”

“Yes, little one.” Tyr ruffles his hair. “You've done very well.”

Their engineer smiles and goes back to sleep. And Tyr... knows he cannot evade their conversation when Harper wakes. He must own this fondness before it becomes apparent to everyone regardless.

The bed _is_ large enough for two. Tyr shrugs off his jacket and settles beside Harper, atop the blankets. He rests and he thinks. As they approach the Andromeda Trance comes in to check on Harper's status, but seems confident he need only sleep off the effects. 

So even once the Maru has docked, Tyr remains with Harper in the cabin. Beka leans in and raises an eyebrow about the appropriation of her bed. “I hope you didn't sleep with him while he was--”

“Give me some credit, woman.”

Beka nods. “Good, or I'd castrate you.” She leaves with a smile.

Tyr rolls his eyes and continues to rest. He dozes a little, waking when he hears Harper shifting about and his heart rate pick up from sleep to wakefulness. 

“Oh crap,” Harper groans.

“Are you feeling unwell from your indulgence?” Tyr asks, not yet opening his eyes.

“Hey man, I was drugged by a buncha freaky Morlock people. It's not like I bought myself some uppers to party all night with the body mod supermodels.”

“Did you find them appealing?” Tyr asks. He opens his eyes and turns to his side, propping his head on his hand. 

“Well... they were interesting. I like interesting.” Harper picks at the blanket. “Dylan got the info I picked up, right? Looks like they had most of the Commonwealth's experimental medical research before they turned it into something else.”

“Yes, he's very pleased. Trance and Andromeda sent a message through a short while ago saying there may even be information to help prevent Magog infestation in those archives.”

Despite his larvae being gone, Harper patted his stomach at the memory of them. “That'd make it more than worthwhile.”

“Agreed.”

For a while longer they sit in silence. Harper fidgets, picking at a loose thread on the blanket, then patting his hand on his leg in an erratic rhythm. “So, I totally tried to sleep with you.”

“You did.”

“Sorry.”

“Are you? Was your interest merely the product of intoxication?” He cannot even feign disappointment in his tone. He knows too well that it was a genuine lust. Subtle Harper is not.

“No! I...” Harper sighs. “Look, just tell me if I'm imagining this? Because I used to be pretty good at reading Ub--” He catches himself. “Nietzcheans. But you're not like any I've ever met. If you were a human I'd have thrown myself at you a long time ago. But I don't know if I'm just misreading some protective instinct or--”

Tyr kisses him. On the lips this time. Harper stills for a second then closes his eyes and returns the kiss, coaxing it into a meeting of tongues as well as lips with little licks. Afterwards Tyr strokes his cheek and Harper leans into the touch as a pet would. “You are misreading nothing. We have simply been telling the story at an excruciatingly slow pace.”

“Well life's short, Tyr.”

“Tragically so. Now that you are of sober mind...”

“Yeah?”

“Might I bed you?”

“Yes. Fuck yes. Here? Now?”

“I see no reason to wait.”

Harper shoves the blanket aside then blinks. “Wow. I am... really naked.”

“You're still wearing the shirt.”

The garish Hawaiian shirt remained on through the night, despite the discarding of all other clothing. Harper laughs. “And you're still willing to sleep with me? Must be love.”

A joke of course. Neither of them expect love in this Universe or this lifetime. 

But Tyr presses the boy into the sheets and makes his body sing. They wring every last drop of pleasure from one another. He sees a look in Harper's blue eyes that he wants to remain for him only, eternally.

Maybe this is what love is for them, he thinks afterwards, when he holds Harper's sated body against his own and strokes his hand up and down the fragile frame. 

He's certain that as short as life is, they will have enough time to find out.


End file.
